


Changes

by breaththatwalks



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Marauders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 22:31:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breaththatwalks/pseuds/breaththatwalks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marauder's era, set in the beginning of their seventh year. Everyone has chnged over the summer, end everyone is noticing. James/Lily, Remus/Sirius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. James

"Evans. Oi, Evans!'  
The green-eyed girl in front of me keeps walking, ignoring my pleas like she always does. Taking a sharp twist to avoid a gaggle of third years and nearly tripping over my own feet, I search the crowd for the distinctive red hair. Spotting her, I make one last dash through the first-day rush.  
"Lily!", I yell. She turns slowly, letting me catch up to her and put my hands on my knees, panting.  
"You called me Lily," she states, looking at me with confusion. I look back at her, just as confused. "Well . . . that is your name, isn't it?" I reply, without my usual sarcasm.  
She turns away, hiding a small smile. I really wish I knew what had made her smile, so I could do it again.  
A group of first years run past us, arms full of something that looks suspiciously like dungbombs, giggly wildly.  
"Oi! You lot!" They turn slowly, alarmed by my voice, which is loud from the years of yelling across the quidditch pitch. I walk over and look at the bag: it's dungbombs, all right.  
"Ill be taking that, thank you," I say, snatching the bag from their arms. "You guys are lucky, it's the first day. I'll go easyon you. If this happens again, you'll both be getting detention."  
They both look away, ashamed, before running off. I sigh, quickly vanishing the bag. I catch Lily staring at me. "What?" I say, confused. She looks like she's about to laugh.  
"What?" I repeat, feeling sightly insulted. Did I have chocolate frogs in my hair again?   
"You . . . I thought you were going to congratulate them or something. You know, the next pranking generation."  
"Well, they're first years. They could get hurt or . . .something." She shakes her head at me, grinning. "So, James Potter, why were you so urgent to see me?"  
"Well . . . I wanted to say good morning." I reply, realizing how stupid that sounded.  
"You chased me through seven hallways just to say good morning?" I nod, looking at the floor. She chuckles lightly, and I stop flinching in anticipation of a curse. Daring to look up, she appears to be actually smiling at me, then leans forward and kisses me on the cheek. I start upright, shocked. "Did you just- you-" She grins at my reaction and walks off, calling over her shoulder:"Good morning to you too, James. See you on prefect duty."  
She walks away, ignoring the stupid grin on my face. I manage to contain my celebratory whoop, at least, until she passes around the corner.


	2. Remus

Moans are coming steadily from the corner where Sirius and Mary are locked together in the Gryffindor common room. I clench my fingers on the book I'm reading, trying very hard not to look over there. I glance over the same sentence over and over, still not reading it. I'm grasping the cover so hard my knuckles are turning white. Peter looks at me funny, before continuing to attack his sandwitch.

Unable to help it, I glance over. Surprisingly enough, the sounds are all coming from Mary, who is wrapped so much around Sirius I'm surprised he can breath. Then again, judging by the amount of times I've found him in such positions in broom cupboards, im pretty sure hes develloped a tatic or something. He, on the other hand, is barely moving, being much more restrained then we've all come to expect from our resident womanizer. I know Sirius, and right now I can tell he'd rather be anywhere then having his face slobbered onwhich is strange in itself. But there's still a strange energy around him, like he's tense or something.

I shake my head, because I'm probably just imagining it. _It's your own fault,_ I remind myself. You're the one who had to go and get a crush on your unbelievably hot, unavailable and straight best friend. I look over one more time. Mary is practically pinning him down. Is it my imagination, or do his eyes flicker over to me? I shake my head and grimace at my own imganation, giving me false hope. Me, the scrawny werewolf sitting in the corner with a book. As if.

But I can't sit there. I've been sitting for years, watching this happen. I'm done. I stand up suddenly, book falling out of my lap. Peter looks at me in surprise. I rarely snap. I march over to them, roughly puling Mary off of him. She shrieks at me while Sirius quickly stand up and brushes the hair out of his eyes. "Sirius! Your friend just practically threw me across the room!", Mary's  voice rings out, a solid octave higher then usual. I step in front of her, hands thrown up in exasperation.  "Look, he obviously doesn't want to snog you, so just leave him alone and go read a book or something. I'm sure there are plenty of other people in the castle who would be more then happy for a chance to kiss you."

She steps backs, glaring, before fixing her stare on Sirius. " _Well,_ Sirius? Should I leave? Am I not WANTED here?" The black-haired boy straightens himself and glances awkwardly around. "Well . . ."

She turns to me again, arms crossed and eyes glaring straight into mine. "Why should you care who he snogs, Lupin?" Her voice is still too high, too nasally, implying too many things that I've put up with for the past seven years. Normal me would step back, lower my voice and ration it out with her, but I'm too riled up to care about consequences right now. " _Because_ ," I growl at her, thought he full moon isn't for another week, "He's mine." Before either of them can react or me to regret it, I grab his collar and kiss him,forcing him back against the wall. Sirius is only surprised for a second before wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling my closer. I hear gasps around the room and break away.

We look each other in the eye for a moment, a little dazed from the intensity. 

"I mean. . . if you want to be," I manage to stutter out, still distracted by the feel of his lips on mine. "Mine, that is."

Sirius grins at me with his stormy gray eyes. "Took you long enough" he says, before taking advantage of my slightly open mouth to snog me.

The next time we break apart, I spot Mary smiling in the corner of the common room, looking much too pleased with herself. "You owe me three galleons, Black!"


	3. Sirius

"Filthy mudblood! You don't deserve to wipe our shoes of your filth!"  
I peer around the corner to see a group of sixth-year slytherins crowded around a second year hufflepuff who was cowering against the wall. I leaned back, hoping they wouldn't see me. One of them threw a kick at the kid, and I flinched.  
"C'mon, Black, this one's yours. Better do good if you wanna impress you-know-who." I start. Had they seen me? But no, the group parted to reveal my brother standing in the middle. He looked faintly sick, though he was trying to hide it. He stepped forward and paused, obviously scared abut what he had to do.  
One of them shoved him forward. "Reg, this is your chance. You gotta impress him or pay they consequences."  
Red flashed before my eyes. Reg was my name for him, and no one threatens my baby brother, no matter how many bad things he'd done.  
"Oi, you lot!" I step froward, pointing my wand into the group.

The slytherins hurriedly step back, including Reg, who sidesteps behind two of the taller slytherins to hide himself. I keep my wand leveled at their faces and run over to the hufflepuff kid's side.  
The group relaxes. One of them calls back into the group, "Idiots! It's no teacher!" He steps forward, sneering.

  
"Why, if it isn't the blood traitor Black, stopping to new levels of filth." I nudge the hufflepuff and gesture towards the corridor with my head. He takes the memo and flees, running so fast I thought he was going to trip over his own feet. None of the slytherins make any move to follow him, as I'd predicted. Unfortunately, it meant they were all focused on me. They quickly spread out into a semi-circle around me, forcing me into the wall. Reg is still in the background, and I'm not the only one who notices.

  
"Well, this is a much better test then we expected, isn't it?" The tallest one says, grabbing Reg and pulling him forward by the arm. "How's this? You torture your big blood traitor brother here, and we let you in easy."

  
Reg stands still, avoiding my eyes.  
Another boy laughs. "Got no stomach for it? How about a demonstration?" He steps forward and points his wand at me. "Crucio!"

Pain, that's all I can feel, hear or see. Pain all around me, like stabbing knives. I faintly here the other boys laughi

ng as I writhe on the floor, unable to stop this.  
I hear a shout, and the pain stops. I lay on the floor, panting. A hand lightly rests on my shoulder. "Sirius . . . "  
I prop myself up to see Regulus standing awkwardly beside me, with the rest of the gang sprawled on the floor. I stare at it in shock. Then, looking up at what used to be my innocent bother, I ask "Did you do that?"

He steps back, a little unsure and hurt at the cold tone of my voice. "Well . . yeah. Nobody hurts my brother." I soften a bit at that. Accepting his hand, I pull myself up. I step over to tall ugly and bend over. "Reg . . these are some serious spells. Where did you learn this stuff?"

He flushes. "You know . . around." he mumbles. I look at the floor as I realize what he means. We shuffle around awkwardly, not meeting each other's eyes. I glance over and see how tired and pale he looks. "Y'know, Reg . . ." He looks up, half-hopeful and half scared. "You could always just leave them." He starts to shake his head, opening his mouth, but I cut him off. "You aren't happy. Screw what Mom and Dad think. I've got friends. We could help. Just leave them!" I expect him to yell, at the very least. But he just stares sadly at me.

"I can't leave, Sirius." I shake my head and snort, but he cuts me off this time. "No, I can't! You don't understand, Sirius. This is my life now." He smiles weakly. "It's not as bad as it looks."

He looks at the bodies on the floor. "Well, I should, you know .. " He gestures at them. I frown. "How are you going to explain this?" He shrugs. "I'm not horrible with a memory charm. Isn't the first time." I nod, not really knowing what to say. "I should probably get back to the common room . . my friends will be waiting." He nods halfheartedly, and I break down the wall just for a second and hug him, like I used to when we were kids. He freezes for a second, like he'd forgotten, then hugs me back. "You're still my brother, Reg. No matter what."

 

I let go and walk down the corridor.


	4. Snape

"Good morning, class!" Professor Slughorn grinned widely.  
If he expected a chorus of "Good mornings" back, he was disappointed. Only Lily smiled and greeted him, and he clucked affectionately at her.  
"Today, I've got something special planned. You will turn to page 285 and complete the exercises on common poisons! You will be creating your own antidotes! You will be completing this exercise in partners-"  
The rest of what he said was cut off by the mad scramble of the entire class dashing to their best friend. I get shoved out of the way brusquely as that Potter rushes over to his friend Black. I glance hopefully over at Lily, but she crosses her arms and turns to her friends.  
"Quiet!" Slughorn's voice rings through chaos. "As I was saying, you will be working in partners that have already been assigned." The class groans. Slughorn waves his wand, and a roll of parchment appears in front of him as he reads off the names our the class.

"Macdonald with Potter"  
"Pettigrew with Evans" I groan quietly to myself as Peter grins hopefully at the redhead who sighed with annoyance.  
"Snape with Lupin" I freeze, my eyes glancing over at the sandy-haired boy with the scars on his face. The one boy with the secret. He glances over at me before dropping his eyes, avoiding my slightly horrified gaze.  
Slughorn finishes his his list and Remus walks over to me, setting down his potions book beside mine, offering a small smile. "So, which antidote are you thinking of making?", he says quietly.

I turn to face him. "You don't have to have to do this, you know. I'll tell Slughorn we both made it. You don't have to ruin your reputation."  
He looks straight at me. "This is a group project. It isn't exactly fair to let you do it alone. Now, how can I help?"  
I shrug. His choice. "Cut up those Jellyfig stems and put them in the cauldron."  
He gets out his knife and starts chopping, having almost no luck, given the type of roots. "No, not like that." I push past him impatiently. "Use the pestle. Grind them, you'll be finished much quicker." He looks up in surprise. "Thanks."  
Time passes surprisingly quickly without Potter or Black trying to blow up my cauldron. I guess they weren't willing to hurt their precious "Moony".

"Well, my boys, this looks marvellous! Mind if I test it?" I look up in surprise and annoyance as Professor Slughorn peers over my shoulder. He takes a couple drops, puts them into a vial with some clear liquid and shakes it. A slight hissing sound occurs and the liquid turns bright red. "Marvellous! Simply marvellous! An Outstanding for both of you, I think!" Remus smiles at me behind Slughorn's back, and offers him a thumbs up. I smile slightly, or try too.

As the bell rings, I shove my books into my bag, hoping to get out before I could face Lily's glaring face or Slughorn's beaming smile that made me want to punch him in the gut.I somehow make it out, but I've barely passed the second corridor when I group or Gryffindors shove me down.

"Look, its the snake, slithering on the floor. Yeah, get back where you belong, traitor." I hand grabs my bag and rips it away from me, throwing it down that hall. Another kid blocks my attempts to get up, placing his wand on my head.  
"Oh, where do you think you're going? Let's hear you beg, why don't we? Beg, snake." I get shoved down to the floor again.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?"  
A familiar voice makes me look up. Remus Lupin is standing in front of me, holding his prefect's badge and wand out. "Now, all of you are losing ten house points. And I want you to report to Professor McGonagall for detention tonight, got it?" The boys grumble and head off. Remus hands me my bag and holds out a hand to help me up. I look up slowly, almost ashamed. This is the boy I had spent the last five years trying to expose his secret that could alienate him form teh entire school, and who had never done anything to me personally. Yet here he was protecting me.  
I grab his hand and pull myself up. "Thanks", I say shortly. He gives me a small smile. "Anytime."


	5. Peter

They all seem so happy, you know? James has finally got Lily. Sirius and Remus and staring at each other like lovesick puppies. I chuckle slightly at my own joke. See, if I had said that out loud, they would have ignored me. Who needs me? The one whose only there so they have someone to impress. The one whose never good enough. The one the only thing they say to is "Oh, Peter." Who notices me anymore? I could go drown myself in the lake. In fact, they would probably be happy. Well, I'll show them. Who says I can't take a different path?


End file.
